A train of evils fell upon Macedonia and Thrace as a result of the assassination of Roger de Flor. Michael soon had reason to regret this ill-advised deed. Not only did the Catalans, in their first access of fury, avenge the death of their great leader and their comrades by unspeakable cruelties and by the destruction of every village which they came upon, not only did they defeat the young emperor in open battle and almost capture him as he fled from the field, but they invited over from Asia Minor into Macedonia all the Turks who could be induced to come. At Gallipoli the Catalans tried to form a state. It failed owing to dissensions among their leaders. Their raids into Thrace had so ruined that country that they themselves began to starve. So they started upon an odyssey into Macedonia, where the common soldiers, wearied of the civil strife engendered by their leaders, who were continually ordering them to cut each other’s throats, decided to make an end of these costly personal jealousies. They killed the nobles who led them, and marched south into Thessaly. Gauthier de la Brienne committed the imprudence of seeking their aid in Athens. In 1310 they killed Brienne, set up in Athens a military democracy, and started to revive the Peloponnesian Wars.[58] The further fortunes of the Grand Catalan Company do not come within the limits of our work. Roger and the Catalans, for that matter, were never in direct contact with the Osmanlis. But it was necessary to give a brief statement of their services to the Byzantine Empire in order that we might have a proper appreciation of their services to the Ottoman Empire. When they withdrew into Thessaly they had left the Turks behind them in Thrace and Macedonia. To the unhappy emperor who had received them nine years before as saviours of the Empire, this was their legacy.